Literal TranslationWhy, wouldn't this heart of mine fill with pain, it isn't some concreteI will cry a thousand cries, whenever I get beaten and face mistreat:I am not at a temple or a mosque, not at your home, nor at doorstep, I am sitting at the public street, who are you to pick me up:The prison of life, the captivity of pain, are in truth, one and the same,To…

There has been storm on the television studio, ever since
the Waterloo of NDTV and team happened with JNU episode. In fact, everyone
involved in the JNU episode, came out as a winner, except for journalists,
deal-makers who have contributed to the nation-building in earlier regime by
getting people of impeccable bearing like Mr. A Raja appointed to the cabinet.
Media, post-JNU broke a clear divide of tolerant and intolerant. Since that day of great churn in media world, things were different. Lines were drawn and TRP sources were defined. So
Ishrat Jahan is one day, Samjhauta Twist the other, NIT Srinagar yet another
day. In the middle of all this, suddenly Agusta Westland Chopper
scam comes back. A meeting was hurriedly called up at the residence of topmost
Congress leader as Notice was given for debate on the bribery in the Rajya
Sabha. Here are the excerpts from that meeting on this summer day at Janpath in
Delhi: Supreme Leader: What is this nonsense? The day after this
man reaches…

कहते हैं , जब रही ना मुझे ताक़त ए सुख़न जानूँ किसी के दिल की मैं क्यों कर कहे बगैर। "Kahte hain, jab rahi na mujhe
taqat-e-sukhanJanoon kisi ke dil ki main kyunkar, kahe bagair"
This is one of the lesser known couplet by Ghalib. Loosely translated it
means- “If it is said, that I no longer hold
the power of writingWhy should I be told the affairs of someone’s heart, without
asking?” Being a writer is a rare privilege. It allows one to
reach out deeper into human hearts, offers rare empathy to pain, happiness and
ambitions of fellow human beings. When I say writing here, I am not referring
to writers driven solely by commercial necessities, writing as per
market-mechanization. Writers, like doctors, have the ability and authority to
look into our hearts and find the treasures which we never know, we possessed.
This also puts a great responsibility on the writers. A writer searches the
truth, not only for himself, but also for those about him and for the
generations after him. No…

I had last week written on why reading is essential for
getting in a rounded personality (Why Early Reading for Kids Makes Sense?). One of the interesting revert was that while
books are good to make one ‘successful’, too much emphasis on the books will
make a person 'bookish'. Two errors of judgment lie in here, in my opinion. Primary issue is the assumption that I am advocating reading
from the view of making a successful person, intonation being a successful
person from the practical parameters. That was not the premise when I wrote
that. I do not think success in a worldly sense has some written formula or
recipe. Luck or fortune plays a great role there. We use some phrases every
day, something to do with American world view that we do not realize the deeper
significance of it. In an interesting writing by Alain De Botton, a
contemporary philosopher refers to this. He posits that in an ancient world,
when we came across a poor and thus ‘unsuccessful’ person, we would call…

Dear Students of NIT Srinagar, I am writing this letter to you as a citizen of the country, a father and as an Ex-NITian. I know no celebrity will write open letter to you, no intellectual DU professor will write an editorial expressing interest to adopt you, and no great media write will waste his eloquence in writing flowery Op-ed as tribute to your bravery in extremely hostile environment. I am writing because it means much to ordinary Indian. Some pictures have the ability of changing the course of
the history. The one that I have put up here is one such. Media is in search of
finding such pictures and as we know now, at times driven by agendas,
fabricating and propagating one. But amid those fabricated, choreographed and
photoshopped images, some like paper Tricolor being raised in the heart of the
valley at NIT Srinagar stand as some kind of message of divine intention in
their innocence and truth. This paper tricolor carries a value much higher than
the paper tigers eulogized b…

I am an only child,
though not a child anymore. My childhood went in search of friendships outside
the home, and waiting for the evening to come by to immerse into those rare
moments of camaraderie. Our days, the Pre-Appu childhood, was largely
supervised by our parents. I do not much remember visiting my friend’s place in
childhood. Much unlike my daughter and her friends who keep meeting up in their
homes. My friends were kids of my father’s colleagues and we met when they met.
Friendships were formed and finished in the children park. The interspersed
period of loneliness was filled up by books. It was from Comics to pocket-books
to Geeta Press to even, Indian Classics like Ramayana and Mahabharata. They
filled up my days of solitude with rare happiness. I was called introvert and
adults left me alone. It was an arrangement which we both liked. There was no
other arrangement in the view. For some reasons, parents those days did not
appreciate reading outside the school syllabus. Po…